by Lee Carlon
Valan turned back and saw Amir picking at a roast chicken.
“That’s not a good idea,” Valan said.
Amir considered for a moment. Valan almost expected him to eat the chicken anyway.
“What is this place?” Amir asked.
“It’s your way out,” Valan said, his irritation growing. I should have left him.
They passed through the reception area and walked the corridor of numbered doors until they reach four-hundred and ninety-two.
“What’s required of me?” Amir asked.
“You get my people through the tunnels, they’ll do the rest, and then you can leave. They’ll arrive in the tunnels under the west wing. If you do this, you’ll have your revenge on Lord Rarick and your freedom.” Valan handed Amir an AI with the details on its screen.
“So that’s it, is it?” Amir asked. “You get me out of that cell, and now I’m yours to command, like a faithful hound?”
“Would you rather I left you there?” Valan asked.
Amir strode forward. Valan was slow to react and annoyed with himself. That was twice in one day he’d been surprised, first by Cali and now Amir. There was enough time to see the carving knife in Amir’s hand, and then it moved out of Valan’s line of sight.
He took it from the banquet ha—
The knife pierced a hole in Valan’s stomach, and the pain burned every other sensation away in a sudden flash. It struck again, doubling the pain, then tripling it.
Valan had died many times, but he didn’t remember his previous deaths. They all came back to him now. He’d been stabbed, hung, drowned, burned, shot, crushed, and tortured. Some of the deaths had left him scarred and others, like his memories of them, had been washed away leaving no trace.
“No. I’m grateful you got me out, but I’m not your dog,” Amir said. “I told you there was clarity in torture. I heard words when Rarick’s man had his hooks in me. At the time, I didn’t listen. I didn’t know who the words were from. I just wanted the pain to stop. I would have said anything to make the pain stop, but I couldn’t speak. Something else had control of me.”
Valan’s vision was fading. Darkness crept in until Amir’s face was the only thing he could see.
“After your visit, the words I’d heard came back to me. After everything you’d said to me, I understood it was you who betrayed me to Rarick. It was your fault I was in that cell. I should thank you, without you, I never would have heard Maiten’s voice. I never would have been called to take his heart from Rarick.”
Amir crouched over Valan and placed a hand on his cheek.
The last thing Valan heard before the darkness took him, was the sound of Amir scoffing, “Every eventuality, huh? You didn’t plan for this one.”
9
Skybridge
“My mother worked in Benshi’s kitchens. I never knew my father.”
Doran nodded dutifully at the words when Corsari looked back at her for a response. She wanted to scream at the normally taciturn warrior, Stop talking. This isn’t you. You don’t talk about these things. Instead, she looked out at the orange sky with its ringed moons sitting perpetually just above the skyline.
They walked along a flat stone bridge that stretched from the horizon behind them to the horizon ahead of them. They’d passed a snow-capped peak what seemed like hours ago but had probably only been minutes. Time, like distance, often made little sense in the realms. Neither land nor sea was visible below the bridge they walked.
“She worked hard all her life. She did it to keep me safe, I know, but I hardly ever saw her.” Corsari stopped to frown down at the bridge. “She wanted me to be a dancer. I think in her mind, I was always going to be a dancer. She couldn’t see any other life for me. My earliest memory is of my mother trying to squeeze my feet into dance shoes that were too small for me. I cried, and she told me to be brave. She told me if I was good and worked hard when I grew up I would be a beautiful dancer who would live in a beautiful house, and I would never have to do anything I didn’t want to do. She believed it so much that I believed it too. What little girl doesn’t believe her mother?”
Doran checked the knots holding the corpse across Snuffle’s back and tightened two that had come loose. She couldn’t risk the corpse slipping and Corsari seeing behind the shroud.
The nick in Snuffle’s hide had gotten worse. It was still only a small thing, but around the black scabbing at the edges of the wound, the skin was inflamed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to her friend and the beast leaned against her affectionately as he walked. If she hadn’t needed him to carry their burden, the wound would have sealed itself, but it was directly behind his left foreleg, and every time he took a step the skin pulled apart.
Doran realized Corsari had stopped speaking and looked up.
Corsari repeated her question, “What little girl doesn’t believe her mother?”
Doran provided the expected answer, hating herself for being part of this process. “None.”
“She wanted to be a dancer, but her mother told her it was a foolish dream.” Corsari started walking again, her attention turned inward, she didn’t notice the alien sky-scape around them. “She said I would see all of Newterra and beyond. I don’t think she left Peak City in her entire life. She died when I was eight.”
Doran looked up, surprised by the similarities with her own life. She tried to cover her expression.
“There was a scholarship at first, and I lived at the dance studio for a couple of years before it closed, and I was on my own again. Eventually, I was recruited by somebody who worked for Lord Benshi. I was told I would be a dancer.” Corsari stopped and looked around suddenly. “Where is Vincent?”
“He’s okay,” Doran said, answering the real question. This was the second time Corsari had asked about Vincent. She’d died protecting him, attempting to turn the blade he’d meant for himself when he believed it was the only way to resist Rhysin.
Corsari had stopped Vincent from taking his own life but at the cost of her own.
Corsari didn’t remember yet, but she would, and experience with the newly deceased told Doran this is what Corsari would fixate on. Perhaps if she could convince Corsari that Vincent was all right, Corsari would let go.
I have to try, Doran thought to quiet her doubts. She couldn’t live with herself if she simply accepted the ways of life and death.
“Oh, I thought I heard him. It sounded like...” Corsari trailed off. “The training they gave me felt a lot like dancing at first. When I realized what was expected of me, I refused. I was beaten many times, but I still refused. Stupid, but I thought I’d won. They stopped trying to put a knife in my hand. Instead, I was sent to dance for a visiting ambassador. I don’t remember where she came from, only that she was very beautiful and kind. I was told to serve her a drink, which I did, and I watched her die frothing at the mouth. After that, I took the knife on my own account. All things considered, it seemed cleaner, somehow fairer. I hated being used in ways I didn’t understand.”
“We should never be used,” Doran said, her voice small. Louder, she insisted, “We are free now. Free to choose.”
Corsari looked at her with a puzzled expression then smiled. “Oh, child, if only.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Doran said. She thought, Please see it.
“You sound like my mother,” Corsari said. “From the moment we are born until the moment we... die, we are not free. None of us are ever free. I used to think about my mother’s dream for me, and I realized, if we were free, if we never had to do anything we didn’t want to do, there would be no tension or stress in our lives.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Doran said, already knowing where Corsari’s reasoning led.
“Without tension or stress there is nothing, we are nothing. There is nothing to strive for, or against. It is what it is.”
Doran stopped walking. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We’re not puppets that dance to somebod
y else’s tune.”
“I’m afraid the universe sings, and we dance. If the universe ever goes silent the suns will go out, the seas will freeze over, the land will turn to dust, and we will go into darkness.”
The skybridge faded, the oranges bleeding into blue and a stark black line shimmered into existence, cutting the sky in two.
Corsari frowned at Frake’s Peak. Her hands fell to her sides, open and close to the hilts of her knives.
Unsurprised by their departure from the realm with the bridge and the orange sky, Doran watched Corsari and waited. Maybe this time I won’t fight, she thought, knowing that she would. Maybe, I’ll just surrender to whatever fate has in store for me. It’ll happen one day, why not today?
Corsari faced Doran and glanced at the shroud covered figure across Snuffle’s back. “You wish to bury your friend?”
Doran nodded.
Corsari thought for a moment. Her hands relaxed, and she asked, “Did she have family?”
I never said it was a woman. She knows, she just doesn’t know that she knows yet, Doran thought. “No family.”
Corsari nodded. “I know a place. Follow me.”
10
Dead Reckoning
Omar!
The darkness was impenetrable.
Omar!
There were no physical sensations or sense of time or place.
We have a deal!
The memory of Valan’s death burned despite the lack of a physical body to feel the knife’s violation.
Send me back.
There was no answer, just the darkness, and the remembered pain.
We have a deal.
This place, or state of existence, felt familiar though he couldn’t recall ever having experienced it before.
We have a deal.
A presence swelled into existence next to him, massive and oppressive but unseen. Valan willed his consciousness not to flinch away from the invisible leviathan.
We have a deal. The thought felt small.
We do. You will walk the land until the end of time.
His consciousness shook in the aftershock of the words, but he insisted, Send me back.
You are broken.
Fix me. There was another remembered flash of pain. The knife had punctured his skin again and again.
You are no use to me like this.
Fix me and send me back. He didn’t know how many times he had died for Omar.
Human, I do not fix. I do not repair.
You must. I was close.
Must? The presence swelled threateningly.
I was close to achieving your goal.
You will be reborn. There is still time. You will start again.
No. I am too close. I have worked too long and too hard.
I do not care how long or how hard you have worked. You will execute my will in the world of men until the end of time.
He tried again. We have a deal.
This is the deal.
Send me back. We have—
You talk of deals as though we are equals. We are not. The deal is your leash, nothing more.
The memory of a different knife came back to him. This one had cut his throat, and he remembered dying gurgling his own blood.
Walden or Amir will take Maiten’s heart.
I do not care.
The memory of this new death was linked to other memories. He’d been in Umierra. His mission had been to kill the Archer’s Chosen, he’d failed, but his actions had opened the way for another, and he’d died on the day his plans had changed the political landscape of Newterra by introducing a new Chosen in the island nation to the south.
You don’t care? That couldn’t be.
It does not matter to me who hold’s Maiten’s heart.
Another memory surfaced. The hangman’s noose had left the skin of his neck twisted, but he’d never remembered the bite of the rope until now. He saw himself hanging in a forest, then on a gallows with the ocean behind him, then in an alley.
How many times have I died?
Many.
Did I fail each time? Have I ever taken a God’s heart?
You have never taken one of my kin’s hearts.
I have always failed?
What would you do with one of their hearts?
Valan hesitated, resisting the true answer to the question. He forced himself not to even think the truth. I would do as you command.
And if I command you to forget Maiten’s heart and start afresh somewhere else in Newterra with another Chosen? Perhaps the Lord of Leskit?
I always fail? He asked. That can’t be. Why do you keep my deaths from me? Why can’t I remember the lives I’ve lived? Is it because you make me fail?
It does you no good to know too much.
The more I know, the more effective I would be. I would—
No. The more you know, the more belligerent you become.
It’s not so. We want the same things. I resent not knowing. It is that not knowing that makes me belligerent. It’s my nature. I cannot help it.
There was silence, and Valan resisted pouring words into it.
What do we want? the vast presence asked.
An end to the True Gods, Valan answered truthfully and without hesitation.
Not an end to the True Gods, but an end to their rule.
Valan only knew parts of Omar’s plan. In the past twenty years, he’d managed to piece bits together, but he knew he wasn’t even close to the full picture.
You send me against the Chosen, but that doesn’t bring an end to your kin’s rule, it only forces them to take another Chosen. He spoke carefully, knowing he stepped on treacherous ground. We will never end their rule this way.
We! the Dead God bellowed, and Valan’s consciousness was buffeted violently. We will do nothing. I will end my kin’s rule. You are a distraction designed to keep them unbalanced. Nothing more. There is no we. I am a God. Everything that you have, everything that you are is a gift from me.
I meant no offense. I misspoke. I wish only to know how to serve.
You will be reborn. You will go to Surrusand. Surrat is growing in confidence.
As you wish, but Rarick is not dead. Valan waited in the darkness.
You have set the pieces in motion.
I have. Today is the day, but a new player has joined the game.
Do not speak in riddles or try to trick me, Wolf. You put this new player on the board?
I did, but he surprised me. It is at his hand that I am here now.
He killed you?
Valan hesitated, not wanting to admit he was dead. He held the knife.
As much as anything else, Valan wanted to return to Newterra so that he could kill Amir.
Pitan’s heir will kill Rarick. None of this matters.
Likely, Tralit is formidable, but the conclusion is hardly set. Valan risked saying more, Tell me how to achieve your goals, and I will do it. What can I do that helps you end your kin’s rule?
Rarick must die.
How does that—
It does not concern you. You are a distraction, nothing more. Your role is to keep them unbalanced.
How?
I have told you. Rarick must die.
11
Shared Fates
Vincent was ready for it this time. When Mattatan’s cadre traveled, and the world shifted beneath his feet, he kept his balance and was prepared when they arrived in Damar.
The darkness of the room where they had waited was replaced by a weak light that hinted at shapes where it caught their edges in the darkness.
Vincent released his grip on the bondsan next to him and drew the laser-cutter at his side. He knew they were going to arrive in an abandoned storeroom and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw shelves and storage bins and two doors made from heavy metal frames and thick crisscrossed wire.
He aimed his weapon through a shallow arc in front of himself, trusting the people with him to do likewise.
There was nobo
dy there.
Mattatan’s cadre stowed their weapons. The first-sworn glared at Pete and said, “Good luck,” and then they were gone.
“What’s up his ass?” Pete asked.
Nobody answered.
Ulri’s cadre fanned out from their position. The storeroom was long but narrow and had two doors at either end. The walls were bare rock that revealed the storeroom had been carved into the ground.
“Locked,” Ulri reported from where he stood by one of the doors.
“Stan?” Pete shouted the name. “You here you ugly bastard?”
There was no answer.
“Who chose this location?” Vincent asked.
“Valan did, but our team checked it and agreed it was acceptable,” Walden said.
“Acceptable?” Pete asked.
“That’s the word that was used,” Walden said.
“Bullshit,” Pete said. “Stan would have checked, and he doesn’t use words like acceptable. Too many fucking syllables. If Stan checked this location, the word he would have used is N-fucking-O. Where is he?”
“They’ll be here,” Walden said. “Something must have delayed them, but they’ll be here.”
“Stan’s never late,” Pete said. “He’s too fucking stupid to be late. You tell Stan a time, and it’s carved in stone. It don’t even occur to him that he could say fuck that and not be there.”
“Can we get through the doors?” Walden asked.
Vincent and Ulri both turned to answer, but a new voice said, “No. The doors are locked.”
A man stepped forward so they could see his silhouette through one of the wire doors. He had narrow shoulders, and he stood with his chin jutting forward.
“Who the fuck are you?” Pete asked.
“My name is Amir. I will be the next Lord of Damar, and you will help me, or you will all die in that storeroom.”
“Open the doors,” Walden commanded Ulri.
“I have rigged the doors to set off a charge that will incinerate you where you stand if you open them,” Amir said.